


The Initiation

by pallasite



Category: Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms, Crusade
Genre: Alien Technology, Alien implants, Ancient Technology, Backstory, Body Horror, Body Modification, Canon Backstory, Canon Compliant, Consensual Body Horror, Consensual Transformation, Fix-It, Gen, Implants, Initiation, No Anesthesia, Organic technology, Pain, Psychological, Psychological Horror, Science Fiction, Shadowtech (Babylon 5), Technology, Technomage Initiation, Transformation, Transhumanism, Worldbuilding, biomodification, brain implants, consensual body modification, initiation ritual, technomages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-18 21:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14861045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: Galen's becoming a Technomage.If it were painless, then everyone would want to do it, right?I finish the story Jeanne Cavelos began (in the Technomage Trilogy).Come watch Galen be tortured by alien tech!





	The Initiation

**Author's Note:**

> I am the author of the [Behind the Gloves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/series) series, although this work is not a part of that collection.
> 
> This work begins with the passage from canon (edited by me, and with some new material added). But I also finish the story where canon leaves off.
> 
> Thank you to Dekri for beta reading!
> 
> Edits 6/16/18 - a few more edits made, thanks to the wonderful beta reading skills of Dekri! Apparently Galen's parents were super terrible. Fixed.

Galen suddenly found himself standing in a large circle with the other Technomage apprentices. How he came to be there, within his teacher's great circle of stones, he knew not. He had been at the convocation with the others, but then... what?

He hadn't slept in days, and the hours were running together. And the teachers were intentionally messing with their perception again. From the faces of the other initiates, he could see they were similarly confused.

A band of brilliant moss-green energy connected the stones. Behind each student stood his or her teacher, holding onto the student's chrysalis.

Galen knew what they were supposed to do. On that, at least, he was clear. Together, the initiates spoke the words of the Technomage Code. The beauty of being a mage at last, of living by the Code, raced through Galen in a surge of adrenaline. He could want nothing more - nothing more than to be worthy of his elders, and of mages past.

_At last._

Together with the others, he spoke the final word of the Code - "good" - but with a certain uneasiness. Though he was perhaps one of only a few to know, his study of the language of the Taramitude - the founders of the technomages - had told him there was no rune for "good." The rune the mages used to symbolize "good" actually meant _useful_.

Galen materialized the final rune, and projected it with the others, into the center of the circle.

The ball formed by the runes grew in size and brightness, until at last, with the final runes, the light became too intense, and he had to shut his eyes against it. Even through his eyelids he could see the tangled ball of light rise, higher and higher, overhead.

Kell, the leader of the mages, had taken control of it. He wondered what would become of all that fiery energy.

"Dissociate," Elric commanded him, from behind. Galen visualized the equation that terminated the connection between himself and the chrysalis, and his teacher removed it from Galen's head.

After two days of wearing the chrysalis, Galen's body felt incomplete without it, as if a limb or an organ had been removed. Galen squinted his eyes open in the bright light to watch the teachers carry the chrysalises out of the circle. The students were now on their own.

The green band of energy opened a portal for the apprentices, a "doorway" in the middle of the stones - and then closed it behind them. The apprentices now stood in the center of the circle, the ball of energy still burning overhead. It was time to be purified by the Technomage Code that they had chosen.

Again, the initiates spoke the words in unison.

"Solidarity."

An umbrella of fire shot out from the ball overhead to envelop them, rushing down over Galen's body like living lava, searing him. He gasped - several of the others screamed out. Galen found that the fire had burned away his clothes and his boots - no trace of them remained, even under his feet. He steeled himself.

"Secrecy."

A second umbrella of flame fell upon them. This time the heat crawled down over him, consuming the hair from his head and body. He panted.

"Mystery."

The outer layer of his skin was scoured away. Someone - he couldn't tell who - released a ragged cry.

"Magic."

Fire raked through his remaining skin, scalding it.

"Science." Several initiates cried out at once. Galen's raw flesh quivered.

"Knowledge."

There were no cries now, or perhaps Galen could no longer hear them. His blood rushed in his ears. His heart pounded in his chest. He focused on staying upright, on forcing his lips to say the final world.

"Good."

_Useful._

Useful, he wondered, to whom?

The last of the fire fell upon them. Then a portal opened again in the ring of green fire, another doorway.

The apprentices again approached it, cautiously this time, falling into line and passing through. Galen tried to avoid eye contact with the others.

On the other side of the portal, Galen found himself on a path lined on both sides by mages. There were no other apprentices in sight.

The mages stared silently as he walked down the path. He only recognized some of them - Elric, Kell, a few others from the council. He realized that he wasn't the slightest bit embarrassed to be naked - this was another part of the test. He had nothing to hide from the other mages - they already knew his faults, for good or for ill.

The path led to a tent standing separate from the others, a large, black tent he hadn't seen before. That was where his transformation would take place.

The interior was dark, and as Galen entered, he found himself somehow alone. Inside, there was no one in front of him or behind him, no teachers watching him. Galen felt a chill over his naked body.

A globe of light appeared farther into the tent - if a tent this still was - and hovered over a table of dark crystal.

Galen turned around. In the faint light, he noticed that to the side of the entryway were several stacks of canisters. These were smaller than those which held the chrysalises - these, he guessed, stood as tall as his knee, and were half as wide as they were tall. Their outer layer was opaque, ornately carved with runes Galen didn't recognize.

Was this where they stored the implants? Galen wondered. He marveled that something so intricate and powerful could also be so small.

He also wondered what the runes meant. A warning? A prayer? He had spent much time studying the language of the Taramitude, but clearly, there were more secrets to unlock.

He approached the table and laid a hand on it. The cold surface stung his bare skin. For a moment, he paused, unsure what to do next, and then decided he was meant to lie on it. He eased himself down onto the slab, on his back. As soon as he was supine, a great force, like an invisible hand, slammed down on him, pinning him to the cold, hard surface.

His breath came in short gasps. He couldn't move, aside from his eyes. He couldn't fully inflate his lungs against the pressure.

For a moment, he began to panic, but quickly worked to calm himself with the techniques he had learned in his training. This was part of the test. He had to trust his elders, trust the Circle, trust the Technomage Code.

The globe still glowed over him, bathing his body in eerie light. Then the globe winked out, leaving him alone in the silent, absolute darkness. He could hear nothing but his labored breathing.

A line of fire cut through the darkness above him, curling itself like a string into the rune for solidarity. The first rune. It descended until it hovered just above him, the same size as his body. The heat from it awakened more pain in his skin, and the light hurt his eyes. He tried to turn his head to escape from its burning intensity, but could not.

He'd sworn himself to the Code. He belonged to the Code now.

The rune began to unravel, and the line of fire whipped out and down, driving into the flesh of his right shoulder.

Galen screamed till he ran out of air. The darkness around him began to feel like the cold, emptiness of space - endless, ancient, and merciless.

The fire burned down his right arm like a microthin wire. It split into three parts as it reached his hand, running down his thumb, index and middle fingers and exiting out the tips. The three lines of fire then turned and looped back across his body, plunging into the fingertips of his left arm, joining, blazing up his left arm and popping out at the shoulder. Galen's breathing grew harder, faster, and he felt tears rolling down the sides of his face. Then the fire ran up into the darkness, and vanished.

He lay in the blackness, the line of fire an afterimage still burning on his retinas. _One down_ , he thought, _and six more to go._ He didn't know if he could stand six more.

He thought of the other apprentices, wherever they were, undergoing the same process. If they could do it, he told himself, so could he.

Right?

Not that he could leave now, even if wanted to... he couldn't move. The realization settled in the pit of his stomach. Whatever he was in for, he was in it till the end.

As he lay in the dark waiting for the next rune, something glided over his raw shoulder, faint as a whisper. Instinctively, Galen startled - or would have, if he had been capable of movement. The jerk of his muscles had minimal effect against the invisible force holding him down.

Something thin and cold and wet pushed itself into the hole in his right shoulder that had been burned by the fire. It wormed inside him, deeper and deeper, generating a dull tingling that spread like goosebumps down his arm.

Galen couldn't turn his head to see it, but he could feel it pushing itself into his body. Whatever it was, it had intentions of its own. On his shoulder, the length of its worm-like body followed into the hole, contracting and relaxing, contracting and relaxing. Its head passed his biceps and continued toward his elbow, drawing a line of coldness with it.

At the other shoulder, a second invader started wriggling its way inside, a sensation both alien and horrifying. This was not the way it had felt when he'd entered chrysalis stage. Back then, one implant had been inserted at the base of his skull. He'd been asleep for the procedure itself, and had woken to only a dull headache.

This was different. This thing, whatever it was, was _alive._ He'd never had the feeling of something inside, something _other._

These new implants, he knew, would connect to that original one, accessing all the information that had been gathered and stored while he'd trained with the chrysalis. This he understood intellectually, but feeling it was entirely different. These things moving inside him, things that were _not him_ , were wrong. They did not belong.

At last, as they each split into three and pushed into his fingertips, the movement slowed, and then stopped. His hands and arms tingled now, infused with the cold. The tech was inside him now... waiting.

Above him, a new line of fire appeared and twisted into the second rune, the rune for "secrecy."

The pressure holding Galen down suddenly vanished. His sudden gasp turned into a ragged inhalation.

He was free?

For a moment, he longed to run back for the entrance of the tent, but he felt too weak to move. Were they giving him a chance to leave? Was this another test?

The second rune descended unraveled as the first had, and the end of the line of fire hung in the air, waiting, poised to strike. Galen realized what was wanted of him. Didn't technomages have most of the tech under the skin of their backs? He'd seen such lines on his teacher's skin... almost like tattoos.

With great effort and numb fingers, he flipped himself over onto his stomach, his nose and chin pressed to the table. No sooner had he done so than the pressure returned, and with it, the fire.

This time, the rune burned two parallel lines across the back of his shoulders, and the cold tech-worms wriggled across his back, one from the right and one from the left, stretching the skin and fusing with the tech running down his arms. The strands merged as if by invisible program, forming circuits under his skin. He could feel the whispering to itself through pathways in his body.

Programs for assembly.

This wasn't right, he felt. This tech wasn't him - it was wholly alien. It was taking over his body.

In the reflection of the crystal slab he could see the third fire rune take shape, the rune for "mystery." He still had five more runes left to go.

He grit his teeth in anticipation of the pain.

 _It can't get worse,_ he told himself, hoping it was true. _I'll get through this._ _Just more of the same._

The instant before the third rune struck, it occurred to him that these cycles of alien fire was almost like giving birth in reverse - this wasn't the pain of bringing a new life into the world, of separating - but of _fusion_.

The third rune struck, burning twin lines down each side of his spinal column. He clenched his jaw till he thought it would break, and tasted blood. No, the tech wasn't merely fusing _with_ him, he realized. Was it _replacing_ him?

_ELRIC NEVER TOLD ME...!_

The space under his face was moist with tears, sweat, blood and saliva. He tried to scream, but couldn't - the pressure holding him to the slab wouldn't let him get enough air into his lungs. Fire burned down his back and his eyes filled with tears. He longed to lose consciousness, but no blissful unawareness came.

The cold, wet, metallic strands wriggled their way under his skin, fusing with his nerves and muscles, colonizing and transforming him. It hummed in his mind.

This time, as the tech pushed its way through him - one strand up, one strand down, sending a sensation like the stabbing of tiny needles down his back - he began to think of himself as an animal upon the sacrificial altar. That's why he'd been burned first, he realized. He was never supposed to come out the same person he went in.

The tech wasn't merely fusing with him - no, the unseen forces were claiming him as a burnt sacrifice to the ancient gods of the Taramitude, to powers beyond the comprehension of mortal man. He was steel in a forge, hammered into something new, something dangerous. He would be destroyed in fire and pain and reborn an agent of the Code, an instrument - or weapon - of great power.

_Useful._

With grim awareness, Galen realized he hadn't known this would happen. He should have, after his failed spell at the convocation, but he hadn't.

Elric had, in some ways, kept him in the dark. Galen had always assumed he would survive the initiation the same person he had entered, with new Technomage powers - but he was wrong. He would no longer belong to himself, but instead to the order of Technomages... or to forces beyond even them.

This was no "mere oath" he had taken - it was a bond forged in fire and pain. It was a chemical reaction. There was no going back. He was one with the tech until his dying day.

The next four runes burned smaller lines in his flesh, up his neck and across his head, from the base of his skull and up into his brain. Each time, the formation of the tunnel was followed by the insinuation of the tech, cold, thin and wet, contracting and relaxing, pushing inside him, driving the intricate coils through bone, through brain and settling there, making his mind its home.

At last, all the tech was in him. Assembled. Complete.

And then, his whole body went numb.

He felt a distant whisper then, like an echo of an echo, the faintest hint of what he had felt with the chrysalis. The feeling was at once instantly repulsive, and the echo carried the revulsion back to him.

The tech knew his feelings. It knew his thoughts.

_This is wrong...!_

The tech, though, seemed to whisper something different into his brain... that through his pain and sacrifice, he had been brought closer to the ancient gods of the Taramitude, that he had been remade slightly closer to their image.

The pressure lifted, and Galen's head fell to the side in relief.

The tech quietly hummed in place - waiting.

He was not who he had been. He was not himself anymore, and never would be again. He was something that was part himself, and part other.

He was a Technomage.


End file.
